Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (2018) 90(3): 3175-3184

(Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences)

Printed version ISSN 0001-3765 / Online version ISSN 1678-2690
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765201820170955
www.scielo.br/aabc | www.fb.com/aabcjournal

Satellite Telemetry and Image Reception with Software Defined

Radio Applied to Space Outreach Projects in Brazil

DAVID JULIAN M. PERALTA1, DOUGLAS S. DOS SANTOS2, AURO TIKAMI3,

WALTER A. DOS SANTOS3 and EDSON W.R. PEREIRA4

1
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia e Tecnologia Espaciais, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas
Espaciais, Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, 12227-010 São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
2
Departamento de Engenharia Eletrônica, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal
Eduardo Gomes, 50, Vila das Acácias, 12228-900 São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
3
Coordenação de Engenharia e Tecnologia Espacial, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais,
Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, 12227-010 São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
4
Liga de Amadores Brasileiros de Radio Emissão/LABRE - AMSAT-BR, Rua Dr. Miguel
Vieira Ferreira, 345A, Tatuapé, 03071-080 São Paulo, SP, Brazil

Manuscript received on November 28, 2017; accepted for publication on February 19, 2018

ABSTRACT
Software Defined Radio (SDR) uses a processor, a special receiver and software that play the main parts of
the receiver (mixer, filters, amplifiers, modulators, demodulators, etc.) and it is quite advantageous for its
flexibility and compact size as it reduces the amount of hardware components while adapting for different
needs. This work briefly presents the SDR concept and approach for obtaining satellite telemetries and
imagery in the context of different modulation schemes, link budget requirements and different satellites
types. Two case studies are presented for supporting affordable ground segment and promoting satellites
projects in Brazil. Reception from the 1st Brazilian picosatellite, Tancredo-1, with specific software
developed, UbaTM is presented for obtaining satellite raw telemetries, convert them to engineering value
and friendly present on user screen. A series of support software packages are then introduced so that one
can pipeline various operations and automate tasks in the ground station. Finally, a second study case was
performed in order to receive NOAA class satellites imagery over VHF band and decoded by specific
software freely available. Using the proposed SDR approach, it can adapt to projects mainly those with a
limited budget and outreach for major inclusion on space topics in Brazil.
Key words: ground stations, satellites, Software Defined Radio, space systems.

INTRODUCTION reduction and digital filtering. SDRs use Digital

Software Defined Radios (SDRs) have been
incorporated into ham radio equipment on the
market to provide better performance, noise
Correspondence to: Walter Abrahão dos Santos
E-mail: walter.abrahao@inpe.br
Signal Processing (DSP) processors for very high-
speed digital operations performing typical analog
radio functions. The software flexibility provided
by SDRs comes from its ability to change its
operation allowing the update of new and better

An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)

3176 DAVID JULIAN M. PERALTA et al.
features and better performance rate without any
need to change constantly the hardware (Wyglinski
et al. 2016).
Since SDRs are also a cost effective means to
obtain satellite telemetry and image reception, they
are being extensively employed in the development
of pico and nanosatellites projects, also often just
called “small satellites”, or “smallsats” for short.
The use of SDR in the university environment has
grown in Latin America significantly in the last
15 years. Besides that, Brazil had a significant
increase in the development of such satellites like
the cubesats NanoSatC-BR1 (INPE 2014), the
AESP-14 (ITA 2015), Serpens (AEB 2015) and
the tubesat Tancredo-1 (LABRE 2017), already
launched. Other projects like NanoSatC-BR2 and
ITASAT are still under development (Ereno and
Ramos 2014).
Smallsats platforms are usually project
developments with educational and professional
goals to design, create, assemble and operate them.
They are also developed as an outreach means to
train personnel in the future and improve space
initiatives on Latin America. The cost of these
projects is normally limited, so this is where
SDR technology becomes a cost-benefit for the
communication link. A rough estimate on how
SDR technology costs compared with their fixed
item counterparts is around 10%. Therefore,
the main motivation of this work is to introduce
and demonstrate how SDR-based technology on
satellite ground stations for reductions on the
development and implementation costs while
replacing their major hardware components. This
paper’s scientific methodology is summarized in
Figure 1, where it is shown the typical workflow
for receiving and decoding satellites telemetry and
NOAA satellite images.
This work is organized as follows: Section 2
discusses the materials and methods used in SDR
technology and how it works. Section 3 presents
the techniques used and their main results obtained
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
with SDRs in the context of two case studies:
a picosatellite and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.
Section 4 discusses the resulting configurations and
concludes this paper with general comments and
possible future directions.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this section, an overview on the SDR device used
is presented, in addition to software and hardware
options for obtaining small satellites telemetry
decoding and NOAA satellite images.
SDR OVERVIEW
A SDR employs an RF front-end followed by an
analog-to-digital converter in a hardware card as
shown in Figure S1 (Supplementary Material)
(Superkuh 2017) which samples signals and sends
them to a host computer. The rest of the processing
is done exclusively in software using the relevant
algorithms implemented on the host computer. This
allows for greater operational capacity and reduces
the cost of other equipment. As an example it can
refer to the FUNcube Dongle (Funcube 2017) and
the GAUSS Ground Dongle (Gauss 2017).
The use of SDR started in military applications
and later, its used in amateur radio was primarily due
to the low cost and the availability of its technology.
SDRs were also incorporated into the market to
provide good performance, noise reduction and
digital filtering, even though customized filters still
present better performance. Using SDR technology
functions such as modulation, demodulation,
filtering, encoding, decoding, etc, are done
by a software component. They are typically
implemented on a general purpose processor, like
a DSP (Digital Signal Processing), FPGA (Field
Programmable Gate Array), microcontroller, for
example (Wyglinski 2016).
The space mission exploration of smallsats
requires ground stations that provide the necessary
 SATELLITE SDR ON OUTREACH PROJECTS IN BRAZIL 3177
Figure 1 - System diagram of the applied methodology.
support to their operation. Therefore an engineering
solution with good cost-benefit is desirable and here
is the opportunity to use SDRs (Juang et al. 2008).
Often smallsats work in L Band (VHF and UHF)
and S Band and the amateur radio community has
been proactive in SDR solutions.
APPLICATION METHOD
This paper presents the configurations made
between several existing software components,
which allow, in this case, serving multi-purpose such
as a small satellite telemetry decoder and a satellite
image decoder. These settings are explained in the
results section and are briefly explained below.
Using a SDR adapter as reception hardware
and some software elements for signal processing,
we explain the different configurations that shall be
made to obtain a telemetry decoder, for example.
Similarly, using the same signal receiver
hardware, we explain the process for receiving
information from the United States NOAA series of
weather satellites (NOAA 2017). More specifically,
the NOAA-15, NOAA-18 and NOAA-19 satellites
were targeted and the software tools that allow
signal processing and decoding were used for each
satellite image sent.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE APPLICATION
OPTIONS
The implementation of a cost-effective solution for
SDR-based tracking of small satellites involves a
series of hardware and software elements, which
are interconnected with each other and, provide the
function of reception and decoding of the signals
sent by the satellite.
Some of the points presented hereafter are
software options available mainly for the downlink
monitoring that are suitable for a casual satellite
tracking but are not quite adequate to be integrated
into a ground station system that needs sometimes
to function autonomously.
Hardware options for tracking satellites
The hardware part of this infrastructure may be as
simple: (1) Laptop, (2) Funcube Dongle Pro Plus
(Funcube 2017) shown in Figure S2, or similar
SDRs and, (3) RF Antenna.
For the RF part, many solutions can be used
and one chosen for this work is a MoxonZBZ
antenna (Moxon 2003) shown in Figure 2 with two
elements in VHF and four elements in UHF.
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
3178 DAVID JULIAN M. PERALTA et al.
Figure 2 - Antenna VHF and UHF hand-assembled for
receiving the satellite signals.
Software options for tracking satellites
There is a great amount of software packages
available for various platforms from desktop to
mobiles. This work calls attention to some which
are available free of charge making them suitable
for projects that run on a budget, namely: Heavens-
Above, Orbitron, SDRSharp, SoundModem
(Peralta 2017) besides many others such as GNU
Radio (GNURADIO 2017).
For example, the Heavens-Above app on
Android (Peat 2015), shown in Figure S3, has a
list of satellites, including those dedicated to radio
amateur, with information about them and about
their passes.
Orbitron (Stoff 2005) is a well-known software
to track satellites, shown in Figure 3, providing real
time and simulated position and pointing antennas
according to their azimuth and elevation.
SDR Sharp by AIRSPY (Airspy 2016) is an
application that replaces conventional physical
radios, shown in Figure S4, it allows one to listen
to the signals sent by the satellite.
SoundModem v.95 by UZ7HO (Uz7ho 2016)
is a software modem that demodulates digital
signals into binary data, shown in Figure S5. It
processes the audio signals from a conventional
(analog) or SDR receiver as well as generates
digital modulation to be transmitted.
Finally, AGW Online Kiss v. 2.4.4 by DK3WN
(Peøsat 2015). This software decodes AX.25 KISS
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
frames from SoundModem into raw values as shows
in Figure S6. The telemetry values sent by any
satellite are obtained and visualized in raw data.
Software configuration
The software configuration is implemented with the
previously mentioned software tools. In Figure S7,
the software interrelationship diagram is shown.
For this diagram, it should be noted that there
are two possible final elements. Each telemetry
hexadecimal value can be obtained as well as its
engineering value, but in this case, only if one has
specific software for the satellite, which performs
all the necessary calculations and converts the data
to values that can be easily understood by the user.
Regardless of the result to be obtained, the
following process must be performed:
• Initially the receiver hardware (SDR) must
be properly connected to the antenna that
operates in the frequency band (VHF - Very
High Frequency).
• Connect the receiver hardware to the
equipment where the decoding will be
performed.
• Execute the program SDRSharp, which
serves as receiver of the signal sent by
satellite, it should be to configure all the
necessary parameters for each satellite
(frequency of operation, modulation,
bandwidth, etc.).
• Run the program SoundModem, which
receives the sound sent by SDRSharp and
demodulates signals, in our case AX-25
frames, the information and display it in
ASCII language.
• At this point, one can choose one of the
following options, depending on the tools
with which one count.
• Execute the program AGW Online KISS,
which will receive the SoundModem
program Information, to realize the
 SATELLITE SDR ON OUTREACH PROJECTS IN BRAZIL 3179
Figure 3 - Orbitron screenshot with satellite tracking information.
codification and to show each telemetry in
hexadecimal value.
• Run the telemetry satellite decoder software
to obtain the engineering value of each
telemetry. In our case, run the UbaTM
software to convert the telemetry raw values
into suitable engineering values.
It is necessary to configure the communication
between decoding software (SoundModem, AGW
Online KISS, own TM satellite software) by TCP/
IP communication.
Interoperability issues in the tracking software
and a case study
Interoperability issues (Konstantat et al. 2006)
appear when one tries to track a satellite and has to
put together all aforementioned software packages
in order to get telemetry data for example. From
this scenario, there are two possible types: one part
is from the received sound input to the output and
the other is between application network ports.
More precisely these are detailed hereafter:
• The sound output of the SDRSharp, becomes
the signal input of the SoundModem
program (by physical cables, virtual cables
or simply the sound card of the machine)
for demodulating AX-25 signals into binary
encoded information.
• Binary encoded information provided by
SoundModem is sent via a communication
port, either on a local or a remote machine
(IP address).
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3180 DAVID JULIAN M. PERALTA et al.
RESULTS
The results were obtained executing two different
case studies namely: (1) Telemetry decoding of a
Brazilian picosatellite and (2) Image decoding of a
NOAA satellite.
CASE STUDY 1 - TANCREDO-1 PICOSATELLITE
TELEMETRY DECODING
This case study aims at receiving the telemetry
signals and obtaining the engineering value of the
telemetry data sent by the Brazilian picosatellite
Tancredo-1, launched in January, 2017.
Initially, the link budget needs to be checked
for certifying that satellite reception is feasible.
This starts with Tancredo-1 picosatellite main RF
characteristics listed below:
• Transmission power Pt = -3 dBW.
• Total transmission line losses Ltl = 2 dB.
• Antenna gain Ga = 2.2 dB.
Therefore, the Effective Isotropic Radiated
Power (EIRP) is given by:
EIRP = Pt . Ltl . Ga = -2.8 dBW (1)
The signal level received at the Earth in
the vicinity of the ground station using an
omnidirectional antenna is given by spacecraft
EIRP subtracted by downlink path losses. The
major loss is due to Free Space Loss (FSL) which
is given by:
FSL = 10 log [4π .d. f/c]2 = 150.1 dB (2)
Where d = 1732 km for a slant range, the frequency
f = 437.5 MHz and c = 3x108 m/s.
Other losses have also to be determined due
to mainly by atmospheric, ionospheric, antenna
pointing and antenna polarization. Estimating these
losses equal 3.0 dB, the isotropic signal level at
ground station, as depicted in Figure S8, EIRPGS
is -155.9 dBW for a generic ground station block
diagram.
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
The ground station link margin can be then
calculated from E b/N o method or from SNR
method. This method is presented here where the
first step is to calculate Ground Station Effective
Noise Temperature, TS is given by the expression:
TS= (α) Ta + (1-α)To + TLNA + T2ndStage/(GLNA/LD) (3)
Where:
Ta =Antenna Temperature or Sky Temperature
(°K) = 500 K
To = System Line Temperature (Physical
Temperature) (°K) = 290 K
TLNA= Noise Temperature of the Low Noise
Amplifier (°K) = 60K
T2nd Stage = Noise Temperature of Next Stage
Amplifier or Mixer (°K)
GLNA = Gain of the LNA in linear (non-dB)
units = 63.1 (18 dB)
LD = Insertion Loss of any other In-Line device
in front of LNA (dB) = 2.3 dB
α = Feed Line Coefficient given by:
α = 10-(La+Lb+Lc+Lbpf +Lother)/10 (4)
Where:
La, Lb, Lc = All cable or waveguide Losses (dB)
Lbpf = Insertion Loss of any bandpass filter
used in front of LNA (dB)
Lother = Losses due to other in-line device (dB)
Estimating the total in-line losses from the
antenna to LNA equal 0.48 dB, we then from (4) we
have the Transmission Line Coefficient α = 0.8954.
Thence, from (3) we derive the Ground Station
Effective Noise Temperature to be TS = 565 K.
The next step is to determine the Ground
Station Figure of Merit (G/T) given by:
G/T = Ga - LtlGS - 10. Log( Ts ) (5)
Where we estimate:
Ga = Ground Station Antenna Gain = 24 dBi
LtlGS = Ground Station Total Transmission Line
Losses = 0.5 dB
 SATELLITE SDR ON OUTREACH PROJECTS IN BRAZIL 3181
Therefore, we have G/T= -4.02 dB/K. Next,
we calculate the Signal-to-Noise Power Density (S/
No) and Eb/No given by:
S/No = EIRPGS - LGSAP+(G/T) - K (6)
Where K = Boltzman´s constant = -228.6
dBW/K/Hz and LGSAP = Ground Station Antenna
Pointing Loss = 0.4 dB (estimated). Thence, S/No =
68.28 dBHz and using:
Eb/No = S/No – 10 log (R) (7)
Where R = data rate, then Eb/No = 37.48 dB for
R = 1200 bps.
According to IARU, Modulation Demodulation
Method spreadsheet the required Eb/No is 21 dB
for AFSK/FM modulation and BER equals 10-4
and considering demodulator implementation
loss equals 1 dB, we have a Eb/Nothreshold = 22 dB.
Therefore, the system link margin will be:
Eb/No – Eb/Nothreshold = 37.48 – 22 = 15.48 dB (8)
This ascertains that signal reception is feasible.
On the processing side, after sorting out all
operability issues mentioned earlier, an output
port from the SoundModem has to be connected
to a telemetry decoder. For this purpose, a software
called UbaTM, its main window is shown in Figure
4, was developed for converting the telemetry
raw values into engineering units and presents the
telemetry information in an easy-to read manner.
UbaTM was developed by Edson Pereira, PY2SDR,
as a contribution for UbatubaSat project.
CASE STUDY 2 - NOAA SATELLITES IMAGE
DECODING
For this part of the experiment the SDRSharp
program is used. The same connection scheme
of all hardware elements is used, the receiving
hardware must be connected to the equipment
where the image will be decoded and processed,
clearly the VHF receiver antenna, must also be
properly connected to the SDR receiver hardware.
The Figure S9 shows the scheme of operation
between the hardware and software elements for
reception and decoding of NOAA satellites images.
In the same way that the SDRSharp program
is used for the telemetry decoder explained above,
it should be used to obtain images of the NOAA
weather satellites, with the difference that for
each of the NOAA satellites, the communication
parameters between satellite and the ground must
be established, in order to be able to process and
decode that signal to finally acquire a satellite
meteorological image.
Additionally, to acquire the images of these
satellites, a special tool is necessary, a software
called WXtoImg (WXtoImg 2015), which allows
the decoding and visualization in real time of the
satellite images.
WXtoImg is a fully automated APT and
WEFAX weather satellite (wxsat) decoder. The
software supports recording, decoding, editing, and
viewing on all versions of Windows, Linux, and
Mac OS X. WXtoImg supports real-time decoding,
map overlays, advanced colour enhancements, 3-D
images, animations, multi-pass images, projection
transformation (e.g., Mercator), text overlays,
automated web page creation, temperature display,
GPS interfacing, wide-area composite image
creation and computer control for many weather
satellite receivers, communications receivers, and
scanners.
The process begins with the configuration
of SDRSharp, establishing the appropriate
configuration for the reception of each satellite’s
signal. It should indicate the signal source to
be used, i.e. the type of receiver being used, for
example: Airspy, Funcube Dongle Pro, Funcube
Dongle Pro Plus, RTL-SDR, etc, this is to ensure
that the input signal is being captured by the correct
hardware.
In the Audio panel, it must establish the input
and output mechanisms to work, in this case the
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
3182 DAVID JULIAN M. PERALTA et al.
Figure 4 - UbaTM Decoder with engineering valued telemetry and configuration
file.
audio input will be the same receiver hardware used
(SDR). In the output, it must be ensured that the
equipment’s audio output is returned to it, i.e. the
audio generated by SDRSharp must be converted
into an input source for the WXtoImg decoding
software. In this case, the type of output must be
chosen as available. In this case, either a physical
cable that connects from the Audio Output Port to
the equipment’s Audio Input Port, or a software that
works as a “virtual cable”. The computer’s sound
card can also be used, but this does not guarantee a
good flow of audio information.
It is important to know the satellite operation
frequency in order to follow it and receive its images.
Using the SharpSDR, the frequency selection
can be done either manually or automatically via
plugins. Below the satellites that are in operation
and their download frequency are listed.
• NOAA-15: 137,62 MHz.
• NOAA-18: 137,9125 MHz.
• NOAA-19: 137,1 MHz.
Afterwards, the WXtoImg program must be
configured, assigning the geographical point from
which the satellite is being tracked. Furthermore,
the Orbitron software can be used to visually
track the satellite current position, in order to start
acquiring the image at the right time. Orbitron TLE
database updates are done while system is on-line.
An Acad Bras Cienc (2018) 90 (3)
When the satellite enters the viewing range of
the ground station, the antenna pointing and the
reception of the satellite signal are started. When
the system is receiving a constant signal, the
“Autorecord” facility shall be used for receiving
the image in real time. In the Figure 5, a screenshot,
shows the reception process of an image of the
satellite NOAA-19, whereby the two software
are working simultaneously (SDRSharp and
WXtoImg).
In the Figure S10 shows the final image
captured on July 3, 2017, in the São Jose dos
Campos city, São Paulo State, Brazil, obtained
from the NOAA-19 satellite.
T h e WXt o Im g t o o l al l o ws m ak i n g
enhancements to each of the acquired images, to
obtain the better image visualization quality. This
experiment was performed using the Funcube
Dongle Pro Plus receiver SDR, for more information
about image acquisition processes using RTL-SDR,
one can consult the tutorial available in (RTL-SDR
2013).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
From the results obtained, there are powerful
tools for use in the aerospace sector, especially to
acquire data from the satellite. These tools and their
 SATELLITE SDR ON OUTREACH PROJECTS IN BRAZIL 3183
Figure 5 - SDRSharp and WXtoImg working for image reception.
configurations, as presented in this paper, enables
a work environment for easy understanding and
use. Although, they may not work exactly for all
low orbiting satellites or small satellites, they still
constitute a means for adaptation or development
of new tools that may be more portable and with
better operational capabilities.
This study´s motivation was to reduce the cost
for monitoring mainly the downlink of smallsats
projects, which mostly run on a constraint budget.
Therefore, it presents the use of software tools
and few hardware elements that facilitate the
assembly of a simple ground station able to receive
and decode the signal sent by a satellite. The
material presented is one solution that was used
for monitoring telemetry signal from a picosatellite
named Tancredo-1 as a case study and a proof of
concept.
Project participants have become aware of
the information flow starting from the RF signal
acquisition up to the decoded engineering-value
telemetry. Still they are able to reduce tracking
costs in large percentage compared to solution
based on fixed stations currently available on the
market depending on their cost-benefit analysis.
In order to provide reliability, there is a need for
further development of better software solutions.
The software packages mentioned in this work,
in conjunction with the hardware elements, allow
telemetry decoding. Part of this chained processing
is satellite independent and only the final stream,
when the engineering values of telemetries are
derived, are satellite sensitive. In this case, it
is necessary to know the configuration and the
structure of each of telemetry data.
Since the solution employed does not work “as
is” for most satellites in orbit, further development
is needed so future work will concentrate on more
flexible SDR frameworks such as GNUradio.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge Coordenação de
Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
(CAPES-Brazil) for supporting this research.
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SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
FIGURE S1 - SDR hardware adapter (Superkuh 2017).
FIGURE S2 - Funcube Dongle Pro Plus connected to
computer.
FIGURE S3 - Heavens-Above app screens on passing-by
satellites.
FIGURE S4 - SDR sharp screen with spectrum of received
signal.
FIGURE S5 - Soundmodem application converting raw data
into binary.
FIGURE S6 - AGW Online Kiss program with raw and
configuration file.
FIGURE S7 - Schematic diagram for the telemetry decoding
progress.
FIGURE S8 - A typical ground station block diagram.
FIGURE S9 - Schematic diagram for image reception of
images from NOAA satellites.
FIGURE S10 - Final image obtained from NOAA-19 satellite.